Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story
by MegMarch1880
Summary: It's easy to see the people killed by the Hunger Games. But Effie wonders if they are truly counting the cost of the other things being lost?


**A/N: This title is from the soundtrack Hamilton. I do own this song or the Hunger Games. I was reflecting on the Hunger Games series and the fact that so much was probably lost from the Capital after the Rebellion. It's easy to forget how much can be lost in a war. Even when a war is for the right reasons, it does not mean that regrettable things are not lost.**

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 **Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story**

Effie knew very well that Katniss saw her as a bit of a shallow woman at times but Effie knew that Katniss still cared about Effie. Peeta always appreciated what she did for them. Haymitch well he always was something else...

But the fact of the matter was is that none of them understood what would be lost in the rebellion. She knew that arguing about it would do no good. They would bring up the children being lost in the Games and they were right. But that didn't mean that things would not be lost as well.

So many children would realize how terrible of people they truly were some as young as age 7 others at the age 97. No one in the rebellion seemed to grasp the fact that in the Capital it truly was viewed as a television show. What Peeta had done with announcing Katniss was pregnant along with what the other Victors had done had helped some citizens realize. But the fact of the matter was is that many were naive children in what the districts had been through. Effie knew that they needed to realize this.

But at what cost would they realize it? How many lives would be lost to drugs or alcohol to forget that they had bet on children? How many lives would be lost when it truly hit them that they had killed poor innocent children? They wouldn't have Haymitch like she did to reassure that "She hadn't known better," and "She was helping her tributes survive best she could." No one else seemed concerned about this, insisting that they would learn and they couldn't be that fragile. But they were, they truly were that fragile. She had heard Katniss mutter about her prep team once as her pets. And to an extent, Katniss had a point. Her prep team was just starting to learn to think of others and that the Hunger Games were wrong. And they'd had so many people help them along the way.

In a way Effie felt like the only one on her side in this mission was Caesar Flickerman. He had always shown the kids exactly that as kids rather than tributes or being cruel to them. For those three minutes, Caesar made them the center of the world. Not a rebel like Plutarch, but still he had helped so many children. The problem was that the only one who understood what he and Effie had tried to do were the Victors. Effie didn't know what would be done to Caesar as one of the faces of the Hunger Games but she doubted it would be good. He was a great showman to be lost because he had been in no position to say no when President Snow came calling.

The loss of lives and the loss of innocence were terrible things to lose. But other things would be destroyed as well Effie was sure of it. District 13 was gray, regimented, and all together confining. Even Effie with her love of schedules found its way too controlling. The loss of freedom to do as they wished would be something that would be a terrible loss when they won. The fashion, the makeup, the art, and the literature seemed like nothing in comparison. But in a way they weren't, they were expressions of the soul. Something that District 13 was very clearly not in favor of. The painting of the mysterious smiling woman, the poem of a road diverged, Narnia, a boy who lived, and a place called Pemberley were just some of the things that would be lost. She was sure that President Coin would order their destruction.

She wished that she had paid better attention to the other literature and art that survived the Dark Days. For that matter, she wished that she knew some of the Capital literature or art better. For that certainly wouldn't survive either. Just because a part of the circus had been wrong did not mean that it all was. In any case, if President Coin got her the way that Haymitch had said after several Command Meetings. Soon all of the Hunger Games would be a distant memory. Effie had asked why he was upset about such a thing till Haymitch had added on the part where they would be forgotten. No memorials for her poor little tributes that hadn't made it. No reminders at all.

Effie was sure that couldn't be right. They had to remember so that it wouldn't happen again. That was how things worked even in the Capital if you remembered things, you wouldn't repeat mistakes.

Effie sighed, they were losing so much. But District children would live, free from the Hunger Games…and under the control of President Coin. They would lose talent because of the Rebellions policy of unless you abandoned all for the cause after openly working in the Games you were dead. They would break so many people. They would lose history, art, and culture.

But they had saved Katniss, and children would be safe. Peeta was doing better and Effie held out hope that he would be better. She was willing to sacrifice all of that for them, assuming they would actually get to live in peace. And yet, she still wondered, in ten years would she be able to state where she had been born or would her story be blotted out because she was here for people not for the cause?

Who was going to live? She didn't know if anyone would survive in the battles up ahead. Katniss kept throwing herself into battle to stop worrying about Peeta. Thus giving Effie and Haymitch and Prim heart attacks instead. So many other had died in battle. So many more would die. But the biggest question remained, who was going to tell their story?


End file.
